


and sirius smiled

by cowboyvalley



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Angst, Black Family Drama (Harry Potter), Child Abuse, Coming of Age, F/M, Hogwarts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marauders, Pre-War, Sad Sirius Black, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, The Prank, Violence, i love marlene, seven years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-18 12:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21610822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowboyvalley/pseuds/cowboyvalley
Summary: “You can’t change what you are, you know.” She smiles, and it is only bitter for a moment.“You can’t even try.”(or, eight stories spanning seven years of Sirius Black living and recovering and falling in love with things that aren't just loneliness but are, in fact, Remus Lupin)
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 29
Kudos: 250





	1. year one

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i want to let everyone know ahead of time that in upcoming chapters there will be depictions of child abuse, dubious consent, and depression. i will put a note before each chapter with a trigger warning. enjoy!

James frowned, and Sirius Black frowned right back at him. He was tempted to stick his tongue out and see if Sirius Black would do the same. James could tell that they’d be friends. He didn’t really know _why_ Sirius Black was frowning, but James himself was frowning because he just saw that the caretaker’s little kitten is just as mean as the old man himself. He told this to Sirius, but the boy frowned even deeper and didn’t say anything. 

_Another approach, then_ , James thought.

James kicked his foot from under the table. Sirius Black frowned harder, and James thought he looked rather ridiculous, but his mother said that you should never say that to people, so he just pointed to the currently starry ceiling and said, “isn’t it ace, mate?” But Sirius Black turned his eyes resolutely away from the ceiling and from James and pursed his lips.

An older Gryffindor, with hair nearly as red as the scarf around his neck, proceeded to sling an arm around James’s neck. He was sneering at Black but Black was staring right back, eyes dark and hooded. The older boy scoffed.

James reckoned it was a bit tense. He tried for a smile. His valiant attempts were promptly ignored.

“The slimy little spy won’t give it up, will he?” The older boy said with a grimace.

James didn’t know what the older boy was talking about, but Black clearly did. He made his back ramrod straight and looked down his nose at both of them. James tried to smile again. His dad always said that _if you’ve found yourself in an uncomfortable situation, son, it’s wise to begin to talk about Quidditch_. James’s mum would smile, fondly mocking her _two boys_ and their _manly ways._

James missed his parents, and he wondered if they were thinking about him. _I bet they’re at dinner with Grandpa now. I bet mum’s made that tart she was talking about._ His mouth began to water, but a thump on the table drew him back to the loud (overwhelming) Great Hall.

“He’s _black,_ right to the core.” At this, Sirius’s mouth formed into a tight line. James stared at both of them - his glasses could be playing a trick on him, but he could’ve sworn that Sirius flinched when his last name was mentioned. 

Sirius stood up but before James could stand too, the older boy pulled him back down. James landed on the bench with a dull _thump,_ watching Sirius leave. Sirius strode out of the Great Hall (James was pretty sure he wasn’t allowed to leave, but that didn’t stop him), and his chin was tilted in that old-money prideful sort of way James’s father scoffed at. 

Later that night, when James had swung a pillow at Peter and declared Remus his _most loyal and most intelligent friend_ , he realized that there is a way in which three eleven-year-old boys can come together and fit in a very good dynamic, and then there is a way in which they cannot. Because Sirius Black was in his bed, with his curtains shut, and James thought they could all get along quite well if Sirius hadn’t made it his business to get thrown into the dormitory (after-curfew by a grumbling prefect) and speak the first words James had ever heard from him, which were: “I’m not even supposed to _be_ here.” It was very disdainful, even getting angry heat to flood into James’s head, which James thought was quite an impressive feat for someone so short. 

Sirius then said: “Don’t speak to me and I won’t have to bother with you all soon.” 

He’d proceeded to enter the position he had been in since then, which consisted of laying in his bed with his curtains shut and sniffing indignantly every once in a while. 

Now, James understood how this could make a bad impression. He’d seen Remus’s wide eyes, and Peter’s nervous laugh, but there was a part of James that knew that Sirius could be reformed. So, he’d clapped Remus and Peter on the back and shouted loudly to Sirius’s bed that _we’ll all be best mates before long, Black!_

For a moment the next morning, when he was scribbling a note to his mum, he remembered all the older boy - Fabian Prewett - had said about Sirius and his family after he left. 

He told him bad things, really bad things, that Sirius’s family had done. Things he knows his parents would never agree with. But he didn’t think that Sirius did either -- after all, he’d been placed in Gryffindor for a reason, and he’d seemed rather put off at the mention of his family, so he mustn't like them a _whole_ lot. 

And he _knew_ he was right the following day, when he’d said all of this (and then some) to Remus between classes. Remus just nodded along and said, in a knowing tone, that _it’s bad to judge people based off what others think of them._ And Remus was his most loyal and intelligent friend! So of course he would know best. So, with his new philosophy and guidance in mind, James told Remus to tell Peter that under no circumstances should the three of them cease their attempts at befriending Sirius. 

The plan was well underway. James thought that his ice was finally beginning to thaw. That morning, in fact, he had sat with them! He didn’t say anything, but James was well excited, especially after he caught Sirius’s eyes soften when Remus made a joke.

But he didn’t really expect to stumble upon Sirius trading hexes with a Slytherin. 

It was an off-putting sight. Sirius, who was shorter than James by a _generous_ few inches (something that tormented Sirius well into their adulthood), against a smarmy looking third-year with slicked-back hair and mean eyes. The third-year seemed like he knew Sirius somehow, though James couldn’t fathom that they were friends. 

The Slytherin, after casting a hex that caused Sirius’s face to erupt in boils, asked Sirius something in a voice too quiet to hear. Sirius gritted his teeth and cast the Jelly-Legs hex on the boy. The Slytherin’s wand skidded across the stone as he fell to the ground.

And then, panting, covered in boils, and with his perpetual grimace, Sirius ran. This wouldn’t have been remarkable for any other reason besides the fact that most everyone had told James that the Black’s were known for their cruelty and violence. And his running didn’t seem cruel, or violent. 

It seemed scared. Sirius seemed scared. James started running after him.

He caught up to the other boy pretty quick, grinning and trying to exude the lovely charm that his mum always praised him for. 

“Mate, that was amazing.” Sirius didn’t look at him, but he slowed his pace, and James took that as a very good sign. 

“Who was that?” He tried again. Sirius said nothing.

“He seemed like a right wanker,” he muttered. James felt rather mature and interesting when he cursed (his mother would _never_ let him curse, though his father would turn a blind eye to a ‘bloody’ every now and then).

Sirius let out a bark of laughter, a flush spreading across his face. James decided he’d count that as a major victory. “And he’s got a face like a rat.” 

_And not in the nice way, like Peter’s,_ James thought. _Sorry, Pete._

“His name is Evan Rosier.” Sirius shot a small glance at James. And, though it could be another trick by his glasses, or something, he seemed to tilt his chin down, just a bit, and let his shoulders slump slightly forward. 

“Well, whatever his name is, he’s a git.” James decided to take a bit of a risk and knock their shoulders together. Sirius didn’t seem to notice. He was staring at the ground.

“He knows my parents,” Sirius muttered, face shaded dark for a moment. James didn’t quite know how to address that, so he didn’t. 

“I’ll walk you to Pomfrey.” Sirius began to protest but quieted after James made no notice of his arguments.

“D’you like Quidditch?” Sirius, evidently, did, and they had a rather lengthy conversation about how the new Nimbus 1000 was going to affect gameplay. Sirius was of the rather staunch belief that the new brooms changed the game all too much ( _‘It’s not even going to be Quidditch anymore, Potter!’_ ) while James persisted that _it’s going to make for a much different game, that’s certain, but it’s a brilliant broom, Sirius!_

By the time they’d left the infirmary, James figured that Sirius had forgotten his past cold exterior, at least partly, and was officially about to become James’s best friend. 

“Right,” James said as they reached the Great Hall. “It’s about time you actually meet the other two.” James clasped Sirius’s shoulder. He froze for a moment, but quickly regained his composure. 

“Them? They’re just - well, they...” Sirius grimaced, molding his face into something of a sneer.

“They’re good blokes, alright?” James shot Sirius a look his mother often gave him. 

“It was Remus who told me to ignore what other people say about you, so you should ignore what people say about… People like them.” James and Sirius each knew what they were skirting around - it would be silly to assume that the heirs of two prominent Pureblood families wouldn’t have encountered some bad ideas. Of course, James’s mother and father always admonished those ideas and the people who uphold them (those people were often of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, but they can’t _all_ be the same).

Sirius frowned, but, when considering the possibility of having to face the brunt of James Potter’s determination, agreed to at least speak to them. Remus and Peter were a bit scared at first. Well, Peter was a bit scared. Remus just looked hesitant, like Sirius was about to yell at him.

Sirius didn’t talk to them very much, except when Peter took a swig of pumpkin juice and Remus, with a giggle and a glimmer in his eye, clapped him hard on the back. Orange dribble came from Peter’s nose and Sirius’s eyes lit up and he roared in laughter. Peter’s face was red and he talked like he was angry but James sensed he rather liked how everyone was happy.

James wrote to his mum and told her that he’d made a new friend and that he’d made their whole group come together, and when she wrote back the next day, the letter said _that’s very good, James dear. Your father and I are so proud to hear of the wonderful friends you have encountered and the wonderful ways you are making them._

James showed it to Peter because he was the only other one who really talked about his parents - well, his grandmother. Peter said that his gran never wrote anything that nice, but she did send him home-baked fudge every so often, and James could have a piece if he liked.

Sirius overheard this, somehow, though he swore he wasn’t listening, and asked whether or not he and Remus could have a piece too. He looked like he was fighting back a smile and James though he looked rather funny, but Peter was scared and he squeaked out a yes.

Remus’s face went red and he stammered when Peter handed him the fudge, but Sirius just said _take it, mate_ and then took it from Remus’s hand and shoved it in Remus’s mouth.

Remus choked for a while, but he said it was good, and James laughed, and he felt that they were all really friends, now.


	2. year two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It was the middle of second year when it happened._
> 
> (also known as: Remus's body is leaning too far out the window and Sirius knows)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: slight and vague suicidal ideation and self-hate

The thing was, Remus was a _fantastic_ liar. A great liar, in a way that he was proud of, really. Such a good liar, in fact, that he’d gotten a reputation for being the _good_ Marauder. It was ridiculous, honestly (the Professors would have a heart attack if they knew how many pranks were Remus’s conception). But James thought the way he could look McGonagall in the eye and tell her _no Professor, I didn’t hear any shouting last night_ was hilarious, so he kept lying. For them.

And he thought that his lying could allow him to stay concealed. And it did, for the most part. Inevitable questions about family and childhood were fabricated in great, infallible detail. But there was Sirius.

The lies that Remus’s mum had drilled into his head each night for months didn’t work on Sirius. It had, at first. In the winter of first year, Sirius asked about them. Those disgusting marks on his face. Remus had known it would come. He’d seen the stares in the halls, heard the whispers of nearly every student. Usually the Marauders were the only ones not saying anything.

But he asked loudly, and without tact. The whole common room seemed quieter and James shoved Sirius with a scowl and told Remus:

“You don’t have to say, you know, just because this _git_ asked.” And Remus, in that practiced smile, used his endorsed lie. He’d said, in a voice boring enough to fool, he’d been climbing and fell into some bricks as a baby. His heart thrummed in his chest.

He accentuated the Welsh accent. The common room resumed it background hum after a few disappointed sighs. Peter said, “sorry, mate.” James nodded in that overly-understanding way and muttered something about the dangers of bricks. Sirius muttered an apology and resumed blabbering with James about Quidditch.

Remus thought that was enough. But it seemed that Sirius saw through it. Not on that day, of course, but through the year. He’d never say anything, but he saw Remus’s monthly pale complexion. He noted Remus’s year-round sweaters and how Remus pulled the sleeves of every shirt down if they rode up. He saw how he never changed in front of them. How he always waited for the other boys to fall asleep before he used the bathroom. And how he hated astronomy. And how he never seemed too sad when he came back from _another_ great-aunt’s funeral. And how “great-aunt Agnes,” who was the proud owner of “a very cool car, you’d love it Sirius” somehow had _two_ wakes.

Reviewing, the signs seem rather apparent. But Remus _knows_ they’re not. As his mother told him, _absolutely no adolescent boy would ever pay such close attention to the little white lies another adolescent boy tells._

Except Sirius.

The only way Remus _knew_ that Sirius knew was because Sirius never said anything, unlike the other boys. The others would ask questions, things Remus could handle. He could control the questions, how he answered and how that would change their thoughts and perceptions and suspicions. But he couldn’t control Sirius’s grimace, or the way he studied him for a few moments with that pureblooded haughtiness.

Remus didn’t tell his mother about his fears when he got off the train at the end of first year. It was the second question she’d asked, actually. She smiled and hugged him with tears in her eyes and met all his friends and hurried him to the car. She was silent for a while, but she asked, “are you hungry?” And then, “does anyone suspect?” She spared glances at his face in the passenger seat and asked the second question five more times that drive. 

Remus counted.

It hurt, a little. It shouldn’t have. He _knew_ it shouldn’t have. The ‘shouldn’t-haves’ don’t dictate what happens and what hurts, though. However much he wished that they did.

It was the middle of second year when it happened. 

The first thought when he woke in the morning was of pain, of course, but also that the hospital bed sheets were scratchy. Remus wondered if anyone had ever told Madam Pomfrey. He wondered if anyone had ever told Madam Pomfrey they hated her. _I don’t hate her._ It would be unfair, of course.

But Remus had been in the infirmary for a day and a night with a side torn up and a leg bleeding and a call from his mother. There were tears in her voice and red in Madam Pomfrey’s eyes, and she tutted as she helped him back to his room. Pomfrey gave him a _crutch,_ and told him to keep weight off of his left leg, which didn’t make _any_ sense to Remus. 

He wouldn’t hate Pomfrey, because that was unfair. But he could hate the crutch.

_I can stuggle on my own_ , he decided as he limped towards the window. The crutch was sent flying through the window before the door had even closed. 

Perhaps it was a bad decision. His leg did hurt, actually. The clattering of the crutch was faint -- it must have shattered. His bed and his trunk and his used copy of _Anna Karenina_ were all across the room. A distance away from him. A distance he couldn’t walk.

And now he couldn’t move, because he’d thrown the only helping thing out the window. And his leg hurt, in that constant way of a muddled stab, or the force of a jaw snapping at 400 pounds and an angry, confused monster.

Monster. He hated himself, in a flash of sudden heat. He wished the wolf hurt him _more_. He wished he was still bleeding but nobody cared, this time, and he was left on the grimy floor of that place.

But someone would figure it out, that way, if he was openly injured.

Pomfrey told him to say he’d dropped a plate on his foot.

He couldn’t move across the room, so he just sat on the window seat and waited for _something_ to happen. The pain to subside, maybe, or angry Gryffindors with torches and silver bullets to break down the door and kill him in one swift click of a gun.

He didn’t get any of those things, in the end. He’d been stuck on the window seat for two hours.

He was reclining out the window when it happened, his back resting on the sill and legs anchoring him to the tower. His chest curved into the open air and his eyes were seeing everything upsidedown. The sky was the earth and the earth was just that open hollow blueness. Remus's hair rustled in the wind and he could feel the muscles of his stomach and back working to keep him from falling to the ground. Falling and shattering into a million pieces. _Just like the crutch._

Remus was looking to the very right of the sun, just where it only hurt a bit. He wondered if he could climb onto the roof and what the punishments would be if he was caught.

_I clearly can’t climb now_ , he thought. The clouds had dissipated, but the wind had picked up and brought noises of laughing student to his perch on the edge of Gryffindor tower.

But there were more pressing matters than the lonely fate of an injured werewolf. For example, the bursting open of a door, followed by a sharp intake of breath. _Sirius’s_ sharp intake of breath.

Remus tried to sit up quickly, which was an obvious mistake, judging by the pain in his side. His eyes stung and front of his vision was blocked a residual shine from the sun, but hands, _Sirius’s_ hands, grasped his torso. Remus winced, but Sirius just pulled him onto the window seat. Remus thought he might be sick, and then he’d have to go to Pomfrey again.

First: “Don’t _ever_ do that again. You scared me half to death, Remus.”

This, he could handle. An innocent reprimand was not life-ruining. It did not mean that Sirius would shun him and exile him from the only friends he’d ever had. But before the blush had faded from Remus’s face, Sirius said:

“If you’d just told me, I would’ve thought it was cool.”

Now this, _this_ was life-ruining. Remus couldn’t move. Well, he knows he _could_ , if he were provoked, but the fear had seeped into his bones and he thought he was rather about to be sick. 

Sometimes things crumble. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold, or whatever Yeats said. James walked in, and the spell was broken.

Remus erupted into a fit of coughs, Sirius whacked his back, and James said, “what?” Those three things happened, and Remus cataloged them all before his mouth moved.

“I’ll leave, if you want me to.” It feels like there is ice in his eyes. Sirius considers him for a moment, his eyes level with and holding Remus’s. The pureblooded-ness has been slopped off, it seems. His nose is imperceptibly crooked, but Remus noticed. He always did.

Sirius shakes his head. “Don’t be silly, Moony. You’re my best mate.”

There is an indignant squawk from James by the door, but Remus _did_ not and _had_ not and maybe would _never_ notice. Sirius was smiling. He was grinning as if Remus had tripped or Snape had gotten an answer wrong or as if something cataclysmically important did not just take place.

Sirius didn’t say anything to James for the rest of the day, despite his incessant whining, but Remus figured that if Sirius was okay, the rest of them would be. And they were. Peter flinched and it stung, but that evening all was normal. Peter and James fell asleep after the Prefect’s second shout, and Remus crept into the bathroom like he always did. A warm stomachy thing told him that he _needn’t do that anymore, dear._ The bathroom mirror told him he looked _spiffing, sweetie._ He grinned at it and although the nerves had not lifted they were not condemning, anymore.

His eyes were closing in that sticky heavy way when Sirius clambered into his bed and cast a hasty silencing charm. He didn’t say anything. Remus wondered if he was going to change his mind. 

But he just crawled under the covers and propped his head on his elbow and asked Remus a million questions, about if it hurts, if he remembers it, what he looks like, if he’s ever eaten someone, how it happened.

And Remus told him everything, because Sirius had dimples that he’d never noticed, nice ones, the kind that come out when you’re smiling. He told him because nobody had ever really asked before. 

Sirius asked. And time melted away, and his legs stopped aching, and Sirius woke up the next morning like nothing changed, bleary-eyed and complaining that Remus smelled like parchment. And the sun was streaming in, and Sirius was smiling.


	3. year three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Really, he just thought Pete was being a git at first._
> 
> _But now? It’s a bit obvious._
> 
> (the others have something very exciting to show Remus. Sirius is a little too invested.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slight TW for mentions of blood.

Sirius was the fastest. Of course, he was. And, look, Sirius is his brother, but he’s also can be a bloody annoying git. James is just _tired_ of it, the way Sirius reminds them, nearly daily, when Remus has waved good-bye and left for the library with his nose in a book, that _the scheduled date is coming close, men_ and that _some of us aren’t pulling our weight._ That makes Pete feel bad, which makes James angry. But, he’s right, on some levels. Peter was always the last to change.

When they had first started practicing, James has this acute sense of envy: how can he change so easily? How could this come so easily? He was so quickly adoptive of his form. After only the first few practice sessions he was able to change. But, eventually, James changes too, and he feels _brilliant_ and cramped (because, really, one dorm room is not big enough for a stag. Let alone a Sirius as a puppy and Peter). Soon it was just Peter left with his face screwed up and beads of sweat forming on his brow. It took him a long time to get the hang of it, and he was _severely_ disappointed when he found that his form was a rat. It took rather incredible feats of coaxing and comforting for Peter to finally feel good enough to transform.

They’ve gotten to the point where it’s all of them. Each practice session they romp around the dorm, creating what James is sure are very strange and suspicious sounding noises. The mayhem pasts about five minutes before Peter has to change back and James senses this chilling tightening in his abdomen and he knows he’d better go back. When they’ve settled themselves, Sirius always fixes him with this look. 

He says, _when can we tell him, James?_

And James, every time, sighs and says, _you know we aren’t ready._

Sirius looks away, sullen and with something else clouding his vision, and he mutters: _He needs us._

James gets this flash of shame every time he says this. Sometimes he can lose sight of the real value of transforming. James forgets that there is a face behind this cause. A torn up, bloody face.

The worst transformation happened in the spring of second year. James was shushing Peter and Sirius from under the cloak, waiting for Remus to be ushered into the hospital wing. But Pomfrey burst through the giant oak doors with Dumbledore, shouting spells while something levitated behind her.

At first, he didn’t realize what it was - the thing was an ashen, white color, and it was completely unmoving. But when it got closer and was set onto a bed, James saw. It was Remus, trailing more blood than he’d ever seen in his life. And his skin was so, so pale. And James couldn’t sense any life, any warmth from his direction. Sirius was shaking and Peter had stopped moving. They didn’t know it was that bad.

They stayed there, under the cloak, for hours. It was silent. Dumbledore was sure to have known they were there, but even he did not speak. Eventually, Remus woke, and Sirius stopped shaking. But James thinks Sirius remembers that night more clearly than even he. Which is why, he supposes, Sirius is so impatient.

They’re trying as fast as they can. But he’s _tired_ of it. The way Sirius doesn’t sleep when the moon is full, the way he skips classes to wait on Remus’s bed and pine and not talk to James. 

Look, he isn’t _jealous_. He knows that if anyone deserves anything, it’s the two of them for each other. But Sirius’s whining and lying is getting to a ridiculous level. And it stings, in a second-hand, empathetic sort of way, when Remus stubbornly doesn’t notice Sirius’s obvious infatuation. Peter had been trying to convince him for a year ( _don’t you think they’re a bit… different? Sirius and Remus, that is_ ). Really, he just thought Pete was being a git at first.

But now? It’s a bit obvious.

And it’s fine. It really is. Sirius’s whining, however, is not.

Needless to say, Moony’s Big Day (as James has named it) is very exciting. It’s the day before the full moon, and Remus has been extra sensitive about all of the secrets they’ve been keeping.

Peter can transform in under five minutes, and James has decided it’s time, so they’ve skipped the last class.

Sirius is practically _bouncing_.

“Padfoot, you’ve got to calm down.” James really, _extraordinarily_ does not appreciate the headache that the mattress’s squeaking has so graciously bestowed upon him.

“I can’t, James, I-” His head swiveled to the opening door.

Remus blinks. He then, rightfully, becomes very suspicious and takes a faltering step backward.

Thankfully, James has prepared a speech (always be prepared, or whatever the muggle children say).

“My _dear_ Moony-”

Unthankfully, _some_ people have no appreciation for the fine art of oration (“Oh, get _over_ it, James!”), and these certain people _throw a pillow at his head_ while certain _other_ people stifle laughs.

Sirius is not laughing. His jaw is clenched and his hands are clutching the sheets but his eyes are manic. This is it, isn’t it? The accumulation of the effort, the showing of the thing that matters. The crescendo (a word Moony introduced him to) in the symphony of their labor.

He could almost be sentimental. But he’s got work to do.

“You’ve better sit down, Remus,” Peter mutters. “And close the door.”

Remus sits, albeit suspicious, and clutches his bag to his chest. 

“What’s going on, then?”

There is silence in the room (because _someone_ made it rather _clear_ that James is not to speak for threat of flying objects to his head).

“Look,” Remus begins. His voice is shaking but his eyes are up. “If this is something to do with my… _issue_ , then please just-”

Sirius stands, and in his place, there is a dog (more of a puppy, if they’re being honest, but nevermind).

Oh, if he’d taken a picture of Remus’s face.

James changes, then Peter moments after, and his face is even _more_ incredible. It is wide and his mouth is agape and there is this funny little whispering sound coming from it.

James tosses his head back. His antlers are still growing, but they seem to be at mid-height and they’re rather formidable. Sirius, still a puppy, pants and proceeds to slobber all over Remus’s hand.

Peter turns back for a moment as Padfoot leaps onto Remus’s lap.

“Remus,” he says, breathless and grinning, “it’s for you.”

James stamps his hoof.

Remus doesn’t understand at first. But then he does, and there this glorious shouting and Padfoot’s barking and licking his face. Peter turns back and climbs onto his shoulder while James nudges Remus with his hoove.

They must be an _incredible_ sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you! please leave a comment if you enjoyed :-)


	4. year four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And Remus isn’t sure if Sirius knows, but Sirius looks like he is only barely clinging to this compartment and this train and each of them._
> 
> (Sirius comes back from summer and he's a little different. Remus hesitates but Marlene has the right words.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mentions of child and domestic abuse

Remus estimates that he’s sent fifteen letters to Sirius over the course of the summer. All unreplied, all returned. Each starts out the same: 

_Dear Sirius,  
How’re you? I’m good, just reading and spending time with mum and da. Are you okay?_

And then Remus goes into each truly boring detail of life in Wales, and what he’s heard from James and Peter. Each letter ends the same:

_Sirius, are you okay? I don’t really know if you’ve even read these. Peter’s a bit angry and I’m mostly confused, but James seems rather upset. Please, if you’ve read these, just send something to let us know you’re okay, or too busy to send anything._  
Best,  
Remus 

He’s getting a bit tired of it, honestly. And he’s concerned. And he supposes that’s why he’s so relieved that he doesn’t have to write anymore, and he also supposes that’s why there’s an anxious rushing sound in his ears when he gets to the platform. Peter and James spot him immediately, and Remus’s father just chuckles when the boys grasp Remus’s trunk, shouting _what’s in here Remus? It’s bloody heavy,_ and tugging him away from his parents. His mum’s crying, Remus thinks, but she’s always crying when he goes away so the best thing he can think to do is give her a smile and a wave and grin at the other boys.

On the train, where their compartment has already been charmed to holler some quite rude things when “an intruder” (anyone besides the Marauders) enters, James and Peter deposit his trunk and resume formal watch, which Remus assumes, by the code-speak and martial-like scrutiny of the crowd, has been occurring for a while.

“We’ve decided, Moony,” James says, huffing and red-faced as he supports a rather precarious Peter’s lean out the window, “that it’s best to not speak to Sirius’s parents.” He lets go, suddenly sincere and with wide eyes, and Peter falls to the ground with a surprised _oof!_

James leans into Remus, his face serious and almost childlike, free of the laughing mischief Remus is so used to. It’s jarring, seeing James like this.

“Based on the whole Pureblood nonsense, I reckon that Sirius’s parents don’t really like us.” Remus wants to question James’s liberal use of the word us (really, wouldn’t it just be him? And Pete, he supposes, but the whole half-blood werewolf thing seems to trump suspicious pureblood status), but he figures that now is not that time as Peter has just said something that he thinks is _the dog’s got the bone, the dog’s got the bone!_ James has rushed to the window to see. And now there’s a commotion outside, because Lily Evans had attempted to open the door to say hello and give a quick hug to Remus, but the compartment is shouting at her and she is growing rather red in the face, and James is stammering and his face is nearly redder than hers at this point, and Peter keeps repeating that _stupid phrase_ , over and over.

So Remus sits down, head buried in his hands, and tries to cover his smile. It’s _ridiculous,_ how happy he is to be back. A little pathetic, but perhaps someone other than all the idiots he calls his friends would find it sweet.

His smile drops when Sirius steps into the compartment. It turns silent. Lily has turned her nose up and is huffing softly but James has quieted the compartment’s charmed hollering and Peter has gone as quiet as all of them, as they are all frozen, standing in place like a tableau of a moment when everything was just fine. 

Sirius’s back is straight and he is dressed in full formal robes. And he nods to all of them when he walks in and doesn’t say anything rude about _sorry to see you, Evans_ or even a _bloody loud buggers, the lot of you_. He just sits primly down next to Remus. He doesn’t look any of them in the eye, and James murmurs that _we’ll see you later, Lily, yeah?_ And Lily forgets to be snappy and smart and just whispers _okay, James_. She gives Remus a look before she leaves. 

James sits, and Peter sits, and they are all quiet for three agonizing minutes. Remus can’t sit still, and his fingers are picking at a thread in his coat. It’s like all of Sirius’s usual spare energy has transferred into Remus. The force of something unthinkably different is in the air, and Remus half expects to wake up from a nap with his head on hanging off Sirius’s shoulder and a dungbomb about to go off. 

But he doesn’t wake up, and he can’t, because the reality is that Sirius Orion Black is not smiling and he is not talking and he is not even angry, which would be better than this. Remus coughs and does the only thing he knows to do: ask James about something he’ll never stop talking about.

“Ah, James, did you hear what Lily called you?” James is confused for a moment, but then he shouts _oh, shit!_ And you can practically see some of the ice melt. James blabbers on, seemingly carefree though with nervous glances back to Sirius. Though Sirius is still staring at the ground, back straight and eyes stony, Remus can sense his shoulders relax and face form into a grin.

James is still blabbering on, not very much caring that he’s got a lonely but attentive audience of only Peter. Remus knocks his shoulders into Sirius’s.

“Alright?” Remus’s voice is low.

“Yeah, Moony. I’ve just had a boring summer.” Sirius’s voice is shaky and Remus wants to press him on that, wants to shake him until all his secrets drain onto the floor, wants to ask him _why didn’t you respond? Why’ve you got that look on your face?_ He wants to ask him _are you going to always be like this? Are you okay?_

_Are you okay?_ Sirius’s face is pale. Like he’s nervous, and like he hasn’t gone outside. And the questions sit on Remus’s lip and demand to be let out.

But Sirius lifts his head and Remus sees his eyes, finally. They are pleading, just a little. And Remus isn’t sure if Sirius knows, but Sirius looks like he is only barely clinging to this compartment and this train and each of them. Remus just purses his lips.

By the time the sweet cart rolls around, Sirius is smiling and jovial and ribbing Peter about his grandmother. Remus can still see the tension in his eyes. But he doesn’t ask.

…

It’s Marlene McKinnon that finds him as she roams the grounds in the inky dark night. She got used to the night over the summer, the times when her parents argued and that loud banging and shattering came from their room and her mother and her sped away with everything they could carry and a couple of black eyes, shared between them. They drove at night and slept during the day.

You get used to it quick. But it’s hard to go back. 

All of the girls in her dormitory are sleeping by now. Before they slept, Dorcas regaled them with tales of her summer and giggling mentions of a boy named Rudy. And Marlene was holding desperately onto every word in a way she’d come to understand was not normal. Was not okay. She clenched her hand until nail marks bled red and didn’t look at Dorcas.

Between their guffaws and giggles, they asked why she was so quiet but it’s because she can still hear that awful mother’s crying in the car when Marlene closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. 

It’s hard to explain, so she doesn’t. She just smiles. And they move on.

The tree extends over the lake. It’s ancient, in a way that Marlene can almost hear if she listens close enough. The moss on the trunk shouts about being young and new but the hollow in the tree is deep and dark and gives that slight hum that all magical things give. The longest branches nearly touch the surface of the water. The water was black, that night, and still. The stars didn’t reflect onto it and Marlene thought fleetingly that if she jumps in, the water would put her to sleep and grasp her legs and she’d never be able to swim to the surface. 

She finds him there. He’s sitting in a branch over the water. It looks as if it could snap, and she nearly shouts for him to watch out, but he turns to her and his eyes are red, and he is crying, and his face reads of guilt.

Guilt like she’s never seen, and guilt like she doesn’t want to see again.

There’s a moment’s hesitation but she clambers up beside him, limbs extending in that nostalgic way that makes her think of home. It feels good to climb a tree again, and she doesn’t know why she ever stopped, except that the girls would laugh at her and the boys would look in ways she couldn’t stand. Sirius doesn’t say much. He’s trying to rewrap a bandage on his forearm, but the bandage is loose and messy and untrained. Something familiar grasps Marlene’s stomach because she knows. She knows how it’s hard to wrap a bandage when one hand is injured and the other is shaking.

In their second year, Sirius had said that her laugh sounded like his brother’s when he was small. And Marlene thinks that is why.

He says: “My parents are shit.”

And she doesn’t have anything smart to say. She can’t say anything of significance. But she does say: “It’s always easier if you’ve got someone to help.” And wraps his arm in the bandage. 

She thinks that matters a lot more than something smart. His skin is soft.

And maybe Sirius is crying a bit, but she won’t tell.

And he says: “I’m not like them, Marlene.”

And all she can say is: “I know.” Because she does, really.

The night is long and heavy, and Marlene whispers a binding charm under her breath once the bandage is wrapped. It’s entwined with Sirius’s hurt (it has to be. He is magnetic, and even she can tell). The two of them are too similar to get along well. But moments like these seem hallowed, and though she knows that the time outside is true, it doesn’t feel real. Here, there is an absence of impossible stars and a presence of black water.

Her face seems much like Sirius’s, sometimes.

…

Sirius is laying on James’s bed when he says it. They all gaped, at first, and a part of Remus chides himself. He’d thought that at this point, there was no place of darkness that he did not know as intimately as the ebb and flow of his breath. But Sirius says it as if it is an afterthought. Just after James complained of Sirius crushing him.

Sirius laughs, tracing idle blue stars into the air with the tip of his wand, and his breathing barely falters when he speaks.

“My parents aren’t like me,” he says. He shoves his shaking hand into his pocket. “They just… tolerate me.” 

James’s sharp intake of breath seems comical. And Remus knows they are fourteen and it would’ve been silly to assume that they know everything at this point, but a part of him assumed they did.

But Remus knows he’s never heard that before, and he thinks of his mother and how she always smelled faintly of antiseptic and he thought about his father and the grass staining the knees of his trousers. How they watch his face as if it might flit away. The worry lines he has caused. 

And then he thinks about how Sirius doesn’t have that, and he thinks now that things make a little more sense.

James lays a hand atop Sirius’s hair. He is solemn and honest when he says: “They don’t deserve you, mate.” And Sirius says _oh, fuck off_ and he is suddenly light again, and laughing, like Remus thought he was always meant to be. Peter jumps up in uncomfortable movement and says _let’s get to dinner, then?_ He has challenged James to a race and they are running out of the dormitory and shouting words Remus doesn’t care about behind them.

Sirius seems to have read his mind, because he catches Remus’s stare and his mouth turns up in a quiet smile. Remus wonders if Sirius has adopted this smile from him, or if it is innate in boys like the two of them.

“I’m alright, really, Moony.” Sirius is not careful, he is not a careful person, this Remus knows. But information can be challenged.

“You can always tell us, Padfoot,” says Remus, and his voice catches on "us," because for a moment he was going to say _me_ but that would make all of this real.

Sirius gives Remus a fond, daft grin. “I know, Moony. Don’t be an idiot.” And Remus says something dry about _a bit ironic, Black,_ and Sirius just slings an arm around his shoulder and things feel close to what they should be. What they always should have been.


	5. year five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He wonders if he could rub his skin raw._
> 
> _Sirius thinks he hates the stars._
> 
> (The Prank happens, and everything is unsure)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for depression and vague suicidal ideation

Remus wakes and he knows that something has changed because James is stood by his side and Dumbledore is not smiling and Madame Pomfrey has puffy eyes. Mostly he knows because Sirius is kneeling by his bed like he is praying, and his head is bent far down and his hands are clasping Remus’s sheets like they are the only thing he has ever held, the only thing he can ever hold. 

Remus thinks, dimly, that Sirius doesn’t pray. He has never prayed.

Then the pain registers, blunt but loud and his eyes feel like they’d like to close, but there are pebbles embedded into his eyelid. It’s worse, this month, than it’s been in years. Remus can’t fathom why.

Then Sirius lifts his head, his eyes red, and explains, but the explaining is mostly remembered by Remus’s shaking hands and the shout that he hears James stifle in his throat and the way Sirius seems to not be sorry enough, but as sorry as he could ever be. 

Nothing will make him sorry enough, not really, for Remus’s splitting head and the realization that lies have been told. 

He knows, now. He’s known all along. But he shouldn’t have even hoped it wasn’t true. The creature never subsides.

They all leave, and Remus thinks that if he wasn’t so terribly disappointed he’d be angry. But he’s mostly disappointed. Because there is the understanding that if the anger fulfilled its dark instinct, he would be nothing but that beast. But if it isn’t fulfilled, he will never move from this point. So it is this stagnant, static place. Poisoned dirty water and rumors fluttering through the school.

He’s been able to move from everything else, slick in the dark of the night, snakelike and quiet but so unchangeably, irredeemably _wrong._

Remus doesn’t look at Sirius. He makes that easy. But a week in, when the others are sleeping and Remus has cataloged all the ways he has been ruined through his life, Sirius clambers into his bed. And he looks bad, but not bad _enough,_ and Remus hates the thought. And hates the place it came from.

Sirius asks for his mercy, or something like that. But the roaring in Remus’s ears has not subsided and he knows there is this deep new scar across the bridge of his nose and teachers give him sorry untrusting looks and first years are scared and Snape was almost killed and he was almost made a killer and these things feel unforgivable. 

Remus says, his voice hoarse and heart pumping a slow yet alive rhythm: _I’m tired -_

He stops. He cannot bring himself to say the name he coined and loved.

And Sirius says right back: _Please, Remus._

And he says something that seems like a lie: _You’re all I have._

But that’s a lie, isn’t it? Because Sirius has James and he has wealth and he has untainted blood. He has a _place_ in all of the worlds that he inhabits, and perhaps this is what makes Remus so mad. That Sirius thinks Remus is all he has but he cannot recognize that Remus has _nothing_ and Remus _never_ did.

“Just go _away,_ Padfoot.” His voice has not broken but Remus hears Sirius’s breath stop. It begins to break when Sirius begins to sob.

“Just _leave,_ Padfoot, please just go _away_.”

Remus punches his pillow before he cries into it, and he realizes that he didn’t cast a silencing charm but he doesn’t care.

…

Sirius wakes up and thinks of how nobody cast a warming charm on Remus’s bed. He always gets chills a week after the moon. He goes to Peter because he’s already gotten a black eye from James, and by now Peter has stopped trying to ignore him. Peter’s always had a soft spot for him.

But even Peter draws the line somewhere. And that somewhere is when Sirius begins to speak about things other than what Remus needs. 

He gave him a hard look when he first tried to speak about anything else. It was not unkind. But Sirius stopped speaking.

It’s hard to look at Remus. His hair is the same as it’s always been. He smiles the same and he still wears layers of jumpers under his robes, and he’s still growing and his knees still click in that funny way when he walks up stairs. But the differences seem palpable, the scar across his face is red and bruised around the edges and Sirius can’t decide if he needs to let himself love Remus or protect Remus. Because they aren’t the same, and he can’t do both.

Sirius doesn’t like to sleep in their room. But he has to, sometimes, because McGonagall drags him out of the library with no sympathy in her eyes, and she says _not here, Black_ and he feels like _weight_. Steps are harder to take. 

James looked at him one day with ice and nothing else and told him that _guilt doesn’t help anyone_ , so Sirius just decided to go away.

His mother used to tell him stories of how the Muggles would tie stones to witches and cast them into the river. Sirius imagines how that must have felt, to feel the stones dragging you down. Muggles died from it too. But the witches couldn’t do anything because they’d say if she survived, she was a witch, and if she died, she wasn’t. 

In that way, there’s validation in death.

He can’t have one of those things. It would be so incredibly selfish. So, he continues to live.

Mostly he thinks about how Remus felt. And he wonders if he’s in there when the wolf takes control, if he can see and hear his own voice but he just forgets in the morning. Because if he can, if he could see terrified faces and his own jaws snapping so close to Snape’s neck, he must have been screaming in agony for the wolf to _just stop,_ for Sirius to _just stop,_ but he knows that he can’t do anything. So that’s why it’s hard to look at Remus sometimes.

Marlene has always kept vigil on the astronomy tower. Her legs dangle out the sides, and she’s got cigarettes to spare. Sirius was afraid for her the first time, when he’d trudged up the stairs, sleep-deprived and embittered, and found her sitting on the edge. He imagined what would happen if the wind picked up, if someone unfriendly came up behind her and she fell. And everyone would whisper things about _what a shame_ , and other sugary-sympathies. 

But he understands, now. The air against his bare feet reminds him of running as a dog, and he misses that because he can’t transform anymore.

She’d cut her hair short at the beginning of the year, down to her scalp. The blond fuzz made it look like she hadn’t any hair at all, but dress code mandated that all female students must have hair at least down to their ear. So she had to take a potion to grow it out, and it was still blonde but now down to her shoulders. Her face said she hated it. She said she hated it, and that was the first thing they spoke about. They never talked about the night on the lake. They were different since then.

That first night, Sirius said that he’d grow his hair long if she’d cut hers short again, and they both liked that idea. The next day her hair was cut again and Sirius’s was messy, and they grinned when they saw each other. 

It seemed like a natural progression to tell her. She had scars on her legs and arms and purple marks under her eyes that matched his. He tells her like this:

With a drag and the slowest of blinks. _Nothing’s ever going to be okay, ever again._

She stared at the rabbit on the moon and Sirius wondered if she understood. 

She said: _I hate them. I hate the stars. I feel nothing when I look at them._ And she said it like she really meant it.

He said again: _It’s not going to get better._

She paused.

He said: _I’m in love._

Her hand moves to his back. He wonders how long it would take to rub his skin until it bled.

She was quiet when she said: _He’s a kind boy, Black. You shouldn’t have hurt him._

And he says _I know._

An hour, a beat, before she drew her knees to her chest and sighed and said: _Dorcas says she’s in love. With a bloke._ Then she leans in and takes his face into her hands and kisses him, slow and even and sad. And when they part she shook her head and mumbled about _I just thought it might work._ Then she says sorry and he says it’s okay. But he feels dirty. Not because of her. But because of what he should’ve been. She leaves.

They come back each night. Marlene comes once with a muggle record player and an old song that she says her father sent. She doesn’t talk much about her father, and she grimaces when she mentions him. But she never gets rid of the things he sends her, so Sirius doesn’t ask about it.

The song is exaggerated and bad. But the triumphant sorrow of the trumpets in the back proclaims that the woman singing is not at fault, and it makes Sirius ache.

Remus taught Sirius to swing dance in third year, after Sirius pestered him for hours and hours. When Remus taught him, Sirius could entangle their legs as much as he could, though he didn’t know why at the time. 

Sirius teaches Marlene how to lead because she would never follow and Sirius likes the feeling of following, the abashed blush that rises to his face when she twirls him and pulls him close and how he imagines someone else and how she imagines someone else. But once they swung too close to the edge of the tower and Sirius had to take three steps back and calm the pounding in his heart and leave. 

She stopped him before he left to say a boy called her something bad today. And that the boy asked her to kiss him. He stops. He doesn’t remember what he had for breakfast but Remus hardly ate anything.

He wonders if he could rub his skin raw.

Sirius thinks he hates the stars. 

…

Remus doesn’t think Marlene did it to be kind to Sirius. He thought so, at first, with an angry spark rousing the ache in his stomach. But he doesn’t know anymore, because she grasped his shoulder like a friend and asked him to speak for a moment. Remus wonders if Sirius told her about the monster, and he feels guilty for wondering, and he doesn’t know why. They move into an empty classroom.

Her eyes are blue, but they are darker than Sirius’s. Really, Remus doesn't know why he’s remembering all these things about him. James made a point to purge everything related to _him_ out of their lives, and Remus sort of hates that he did that because he knows that if James was given a choice he would rather spend time with his brother. But James is idealistic and has never realized that life works in ways that its situations call for.

Remus thinks it’s stupid, but he should be grateful. Marlene is watching him -- she has been for a while now, and Remus thinks it must be rather evident to everyone that a schism has formed within the Marauders. Perhaps he shouldn’t care.

“Alright, Marlene?” Marlene says she is alright but Remus doesn’t think she is. During rounds, Lily whispers to him about everything that has changed about her. How she is quiet and morose and never sleeps in their room. About the scandal of her hair, which, as Lily said, _is rather bold and admirable, don’t you think, Remus?_ It’s awful to think that Lily has a role in all this, too. Because she does, but Remus knows she doesn’t think she does.

Marlene has dark splotches under her eyes. They match his. “I don’t say this for his sake,” she begins.

Remus knows he should believe that she’s lying. But he knows she’s telling the truth.

She says something that sounds like _you haven’t let it go._ And Remus wants to be angry about this bold assumption, because _what_ does she know? How would she understand? But she is so similar to Sirius, and all he can do is look away.

“You just,” she sighs and rubs her hand over her scalp. “You just have to _say_ it. Even if you don’t believe it. And it fucking sucks.” She’s finished now, and she is walking to the door, and Remus is thinking about what she said. There’s a sky outside that window, but it’s only this blue emptiness that the world only mimics.

Remus’s voice sounds hollow, even to him. 

“How is he?” 

She speaks without turning around, and it seems so effortless and so similar to him that Remus has to smile, just a bit.

“He’s growing his hair long. And he taught me how to swing dance.” 

Remus understands.

Sirius is in his bed with the curtains shut when Remus returns from rounds at night. Peter is snoring, and James is scowling. 

“D’you need-”

“No, James. It’s okay.” 

Remus waits until James’s breathing has slowed before he gets up. Sirius’s back is to him when he pulls back his curtains. His bed smells like cigarettes and it still smells like him, even though he hasn’t been here in weeks. Sirius doesn’t turn. He isn’t wearing a shirt, and Remus sees the faint scars on his back and how pale he’s gotten. Remus sits on the edge, slowly, and closes the curtains. It’s like they are children again. He knows that they are still children but he doesn’t feel it. He crosses his legs and turns toward Sirius.

He can’t keep dancing around this truth he doesn’t even know is true, so he places a hand on Sirius’s shoulder.

The other boy tenses, but he stills and moves slow onto his back so he is looking at Remus. 

Remus casts a silencing charm with shaking hands. He doesn’t believe himself when he speaks.

“I forgive you.”

He feels like he’s fucking lying.

“I forgive you.”

Maybe he hates Sirius. Maybe he’s not in love. He doesn’t know which is worse.

“I forgive you.” Sirius is crying, and Remus still feels like he’s lying, but Sirius has snot running down his chin and over his mouth and Remus thinks that it is gross but he doesn’t think it is disgusting. 

Sirius is crying, and his face is bared to the world, bared to Remus, like he is not afraid. Who is not afraid of _this?_

But when has Sirius Black ever been afraid?

He says those words until he thinks he almost believes it. And he doesn’t really care anymore, because the sun looks like it is rising and Sirius has been staring at him for hours with a wonder in his face that Remus has never seen. And Remus doesn’t know if anyone has ever forgiven Sirius before. 

Remus decides that he probably should not fall asleep in Sirius’s bed. But he lays down next to Sirius, flopping over him like it is his body that is tired. He falls asleep. And when he wakes up, Sirius’s arm is thrown around him and he has dried snot on his chin. It’s gross. But it is not disgusting.

Sirius is new at breakfast. He is sitting with them and is speaking mostly to James and Peter. But he leans tentatively onto Remus, and perhaps he is too tired to care or perhaps he knows that there is a caution in Sirius’s laugh now, but Remus slumps his head onto Sirius’s shoulder.

Sirius smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! sorry it's been so long -- school and friends and the holidays are hectic and taking up all the space i've got. 
> 
> i hope you enjoyed!!!!!!


	6. year six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Sirius looks at him. He has to look up to do so, and Remus feels flowers bloom in his head. They are gentle and pink, perhaps, and they brush against each nerve and make magic burst from his veins._
> 
> (or: a pseudo-drunken confession is made and Things dawn on Remus)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for: slightly dubious consent and mentions of homophobia

Things took place over the summer. Sirius lived at James’s house for as long as he could manage without seeming suspicious, and he started wearing dark colors and painting his nails black and he goes out. When he goes out he puts on muggle eyeliner, and he goes to see bands in seedy pubs, and Marlene and James join him sometimes but mostly he goes alone. He talks to still-young men older than him who wear tight pants and have painted nails and who call him _pretty boy_ and other names when they buy him drinks. And pull him into the alleyway. And grasp his waist and wrist and push him against the wall.

None of them ask for his name. He likes the ones with curly brown hair.

Needless to say, James doesn’t know about that part.

But More Important Things took place: Remus got _tall_. Remus had always been taller, but now he was _tall_ , a head taller than Sirius and several inches on James. When Remus pulled him in for a worn, familiar hug on the Hogwarts Express, Sirius’s face fit right into the crook of his neck and he could smell the soap on his skin and something else right under the surface and Sirius had to pull away quickly and blame the redness in his face on the heat. 

Remus looked at him strangely. That night Marlene and Sirius decide that it is better if they don’t refute the popular rumor that they are dating. It is better not to be known in that way, even by friends. Hate corrupts each person and lies in wait until there is a breaking point. 

Sirius doesn’t think they would hate him. But they would think of him differently. And he hates that.

He’s drunk when it happens. There’s been a party, they won some quidditch game he never really cared about, and there’s firewhisky. James is preoccupied because Lily Evans has _finally_ begun to speak to him, and Peter is nervously talking to a Ravenclaw with long hair and a smile, and Dorcas Meadowes keeps touching Remus’s arms. And Sirius is alone. He is with Marlene in some dark corner of the common room, but he is alone. And each time Remus speaks to Dorcas with that smile in his eyes Sirius looks at Marlene and takes a shot. So, he’s drunk. And at some point, he leans over to Marlene and tells her: _I can’t do this anymore._ She grimaces and asks: _so, will it be a walk off the tower or a lay, Black?_

And Sirius grins like everyone thinks he does and takes a wobbly step towards the fire and finds some seventh year Ravenclaw with a nice pink tint on his cheeks and curled amber hair and four inches of height on Sirius. The boy tells him his name but Sirius forgets and he thinks that the boy doesn’t really mind.

He’s so clearly drunk, but the charm he exerts is working brilliantly, and all it takes before they leave is one hand pressed on the boy’s chest, slowly being dragged lower, lower, so nearly close to the place they’re both thinking of. He glances over to Marlene but she’s just shaking her head. Remus hasn’t looked at him the entire time. Sirius wants to cry or maybe scream a little bit, so he just says _let’s go someplace a little quieter_ (and maybe he is spoiled for not getting his way, but how could that be when everything seems so catastrophically _wrong?_ ).

The boy is pulling him out of the common room. Sirius loses track of the turns they take. He stops someplace darker and colder and more in a corner than Sirius would have liked, but his head is fuzzy and swollen with a haze of something illicit and _finally_ distracting. 

The boy pushes him into the wall. His back hurts, but the boy’s tongue is pushing into his mouth and Sirius resolves himself to just _enjoy_ it.

Then the boy reaches into Sirius’s pants. And they begin. And Sirius knows that he is supposed to do the same, so he does. And it’s not good, and it doesn’t feel good. 

In between breaths and strokes and silence, the boy whispers _never thought a Black would be a queer._

Sirius’s blood runs cold for a moment before he regains his composure (how could he have forgotten that he still bears the Black family name? How could he have overlooked the fact that his parents have eyes all over this school?). He can almost _feel_ them peering into his bones and his soul, creeping ever closer and closer. 

He is afraid. He fakes pleasure.

He realizes that the boy is much less drunk than he is. 

The Ravenclaw leaves soon after they are both finished. He has a smile on his face, and he tells Sirius that he’ll _see you around some time_ and that _maybe we can do this again._ Sirius’s head is pounding. And his wand is rolled across the floor. He cleans himself of the evidence, and he needs to leave that spot.

But he just wants to lay down and forget about it all. He leans against the wall before his feet give way, and his stomach churns and a place below that pinches and rolls with unease.

He feels dirty and wrong. His parent’s voices are screaming vicious things in his ear, about _purity_ and _blood_ and _treasonous whore, vile creature, dirty beast, animal, heathen, monster_. His stomach aches. Perhaps his friends will find out. _And perhaps they will hate you._

…

Remus had begun to look for Sirius when he came across Marlene drinking alone. She seemed dull, and her eyes seemed dim and her hair limp and her skin grey, and she looked at him with something that spoke of ice and disdain and _envy_. Remus did not like her and Sirius together. But there was nothing for him to protest, no way for him to speak to the surprising anger he held.

It’s not her fault.

“Where’s Sirius?” He sits next to her, gently taking the bottle she was holding. It slides easy from her fingers, and her words drag when she speaks.

“He’s off with some fucking -- _shit_ , Lupin. D’you know what you do to him?” She fixes him with a lazy smile. Remus doesn’t understand what she meant, and he shakes his head. 

“He’s crazy about you, Marlene. Spends most of his time with you, at least.” Bitterness seeps into his voice. He finds he didn’t care. “I’ve never seen him like this before.”

Her voice is loud, and it’s harsh, and it seems to cut through the music and the crowd and everything else.

“Listen to me, Remus. We don’t fuck. We never wanted to.” Remus stares at her, finally comprehending. Her voice is wobbly and has lost its edge and she has lipstick smeared across her chin. “You don’t know what you do to him.” She is mumbling something more when he leaves, something about how _she’s incredible_ , and _he’s going to kill me, the fucker_. But he doesn’t pay attention. And when he’s about to leave the common room, Dorcas Meadowes stops him. Her hand is on his elbow and he finds himself knowing that this could be what he is. That he could live that way. She smiles, soft and shy, and asks him if he’d like to go with her to Hogsmeade this weekend.

He says no, and that he’s very sorry, Dorcas. You’re a lovely person, really, I just don’t see you in that way. Then he tells her that Marlene is in a sorry state and that she needs some help.

Her eyes find Marlene immediately. _Perhaps they’ve been thinking of each other the whole night._ So, he knows then. And he knows something else too. And he has to find Sirius.

When he does, Sirius’s head in his hands and he smells of sweat. Remus has not drunk much, but Sirius clearly has. His hair is messy and his clothes rumpled and his face is pale but his lips are still pink. So he is alive, but he looks as if he would rather not be.

Remus’s knees creak as he sits next to him. 

“Alright, Sirius?”

Sirius looks at him. He has to look up to do so, and Remus feels flowers bloom in his head. They are gentle and pink, perhaps, and they brush against each nerve and make magic burst from his veins. He is so beautiful, and Remus thinks that he never noticed until now. His eyes are bluer than the sky - they are a brilliant icy grey.

Sirius only says this, in a voice challenging and so deeply afraid that Remus’s chest constricts:

“I’m a queer, Remus.”

And Remus doesn’t say anything for a moment. But he can’t, anyway, for fear of death or perhaps something much more frightening. Sirius is quieter. He draws into himself.

“I’m not going to try anything.” 

Sirius looks down. His shoulders slump and his breath stills and Remus thinks _of course. He has believed that an admission of self is the same as a threat_. Remus places his hand, soft, on Sirius’s shoulder. He flinches.

“It’s okay, Padfoot. I don’t mind, really.” And he’s trying to make his voice sound lovely and kind and quiet, but it all sounds too rushed, too forced. He thinks that Sirius knows what he _really_ means. And perhaps Sirius knows better than Remus does because Remus thinks that he is trying to say _Padfoot, I know._ He is trying to say _how did you find out?_ He is trying to say _are you okay?_ He is trying to say: _I miss you when you’re not around, and I think that means something._

But perhaps Sirius knows better. Because he looks at him and bestows upon him the most uncertain hopeful smile Remus has ever seen. And Remus can only stand, and return his smile, and outstretch a hand for Sirius to grasp. He does.

It is warm. He does not let go through the corridors, does not let go on the stairs, through the portrait hole, inside the empty common room. James is snoring. There’s a goblet of some sharp smelling liquid overturned on Peter’s shirt.

Sirius smiles at Remus, and it is a smile of fondness and hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! i really hope you liked this chapter. if you did (or if you didn't) please leave a comment - they mean the world to me.


	7. the summer, year seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He is sad when he says he knows, but his chest is open, and she doesn’t even flinch when he pulls off his shirt and shows the words._
> 
> _He isn’t anywhere. He isn’t anything._
> 
> (Sirius leaves home. Things don't come easily - they never have)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Important TW: graphic depictions of child abuse, violence, PTSD, and depression.

The night is cold and dark and it is only him running in it. It is only him running away, _not fast enough not quick enough not anything ever_. He checks his hands in instinctive fright but they’re covered in black. For a moment he thinks his mother has poured burning tar over his whole body because he can _feel_ it and he blends in with the pavement. But it is just fur and he can smell his own blood sharp and metallic and bright against the dim night fog.

His hands, they were not his. They were moving and they were attached to his body and they even _looked_ like his but they could not respond to the screeching commands echoing through his head. 

He does not remember what happened to drive them past the edge. But he remembers the _crucio_ , he remembers searing pain running through his body; he remembers it splitting his lungs in two and the compressing he felt like he was underwater for a time longer than even magic could allow. He felt like the laws of the universe were being beaten across his head; he remembers the _imperio_ , he remembers his legs moving to stand atop his father’s chair (but they _weren’t_ his legs, he could not move them himself he could not even feel them). 

And he remembers there being a simple muggle rope above his head. A thought registered through the pain that clouded his vision in horrific miasma: _why this way?_ And then: _they will believe I did it. They will believe I did it they will believe they will believe I did it I didn’t do it I_

He remembers that in his hand was a glinting knife. He remembers what his father uttered, sneering, while his mother watched and laughed and he remembers what he carved into his skin by his _own hands_ , ugly, ugly words, carved to his skin, ugly words, by his own hands. 

But they were _not_ his hands. They were not his. They were just made of him.

He remembers that immense weariness, he remembers familiar voices, _Remus's_ voice, soft in his ear, telling him that _it is okay to give up_ and that _perhaps this is what was meant for you, Padfoot_. And that it was soft in that place, and that he could hardly tell there was rough fibre in his hand and then curled around his neck, because it was _nice_ in that place, and soft and dark and quiet.

He remembers the crackling in his ears as he was released, that sharp painful return to real as Regulus’s gasp caused Walberga’s screeching caused his father’s faltering. He remembers a primal instinct to _remove, remove, remove_ that thing from his neck, to _get it off_ , and then to _get out_. His arms weighed a hundred stone, and they were slow, but they got it off, and he fell from that chair. He registered that he was sprinting and half-falling over his own feet in his haste. He remembers that Regulus pressed his wand into his hand before he flew out the door. He remembers his parents sending silent curses at his back (these are the gashes appearing, he can feel the skin coming undone, peeling from itself).

He cannot breathe. His feet ache and he is running to James’s house. By some instinct he shifted to Padfoot. 

He has nothing. There is only his wand and himself, bloodied and bruised and humiliated.

In the country the night is quiet. He feels like an intrusion, shifting back to Sirius. The blood, no longer matted and hidden by dark fur, is more, and his head feels light and his heartbeat slow. The Potter’s wards have gone off, sending bursts of light to the upper story windows and pushing back at Sirius with a gentle warm sensation. He cannot care. He cannot even see the door opening before he falls, his knees hitting the cobblestone. He knows that James is shouting, and he is grasping Sirius under the shoulder but his eyes are dark and he stills feels as if he is submerged in a lake so deep and black even the stars do not reflect onto it.

This is where memory stops, for a moment. The unconsciousness is warm and soft in the same was it was back at that house. He is tempted to lay his head down, allow his body to die and give the ground all it needs. But there is James, bringing him in the doorway. Sirius is bathed with this yellow light, yellow and golden and he sees paints and oil and siken smooth hands with scars across the top. The hands petting his hair, soft, until they extend to the length of the rope. Everything wraps around his neck, coating his throat in golden oil paint, wrapped tight and for long until he chokes on the sorrow of it. 

James’s mother is there now, dragging him into the light, and there is silvery fog coming from the end of her wand.

Air floods into his chest and he coughs and spits and vomits until he can open his eyes and not see darkness. James is rubbing his back and his mother is speaking sharply to the both of them but Sirius can hardly hear for the ricocheting whistling in his head.

James props him on the couch and speaks to his mum and as James’s father comes with a glass of water that he downs and chokes on. If he speaks, the silence will be shattered. He says:

“I didn’t know where else to go.” 

James will not stop touching him, rubbing his back, and his hands make Sirius’s skin itch. Mrs. Potter has tears down her cheeks. She moves to touch him, to grasp his face with maternal care, but sudden, quick, there are his mother's hands, green and slimy and grasping a knife to carve horrible words into his skin. He shouts, loud and raw. 

She flinches. The quiet is unbearable.

He cannot look at her but he can hear her sobbing. And he asks if he can please go to the bathroom. And James shows him. And he locks the door behind him.

His face is the first part. It is like somebody else’s, it is worn and it seems guilty, and his veins are grey, like the color of a dirty magic. 

Then there is his hair. His hair is cut. He doesn't remember when they made him do that, but it is shaved down to the scalp. His chest aches with a sense of something missing. They used to call him pretty but now they won’t call him anything, so he cries.

His neck. Around the center it is red, a circle. A fetter around his neck.

His shirt is wet with a dark color, so he knows he should take it off. He has lashes on his back. They are not deep. They are dripping blood onto the floor, the Potter’s white floor, which is tiled and expensive, and now filled with his blood. He is dripping blood onto the floor.

There are words carved into his skin, by his own hand, along his forearm and the expanse of his chest. This they read: _Blood Traitor_. They were written with a knife soaked in dark magic. He knows they will never fully heal. 

He feels like shit. 

James knocks on the door, and there is a sharp breath as he enters. He says something. It sounds blurry, and Sirius’s eyes feel blurry. He’s turning the shower on, warm enough to steam the mirror. Sirius can’t see himself but he is still staring into the mirror. It’s just the dull fuzz of color. The outline of a person. _That’s what I am._

James helps him out of his trousers and his pants, and hands him to the shower. He waits outside. 

The water is pink as it goes down the drain. It berates his back and his skin turns a pink color (it’s different from the green-grey) and James asks him to turn in a soft voice. His nose is stuffed and his head aches in the front. James is sitting on the toilet seat, hunched like there is a weight pressing onto him. And they are quiet as James stands and grasps a cloth and soap, and they are quiet as James washes him.

How do you speak to the sorrow? 

They leave, and the clothes are soft but the bandages are softer. 

James says: _You must be tired, mate._

And Sirius says: _Yeah, I am._

That is how you speak to it. They sleep in the same bed and James’s arm is curled around his chest and soon his breathing steadies and Sirius stops counting the seconds in between. He doesn’t known when he started counting. Mr. Potter’s footsteps are soft downstairs.

The moon is half full, today. But nothing is ever that perfect. Remus will be feeling warm and will not be filled with aching pain and torn skin. But the moon still haunts him. It haunts both of them.

He wakes in the morning even though he feels as though there is nothing that could be more pointless. And he grins at the Potters, and kisses Euphemia on the cheek and smiles like a child. Breakfast is hot.

He writes a letter to Peter and Remus, and in it he writes that they _absolutely must get together soon, mates! I’m staying with James._ There is a thing looming over him, a noose or a hand or a knife or the darkness or a blue child newly born only to die for desperate want of air. But there is no time for that, and he is a Gryffindor, and he is fine.

And then there is a time when it is raining. And James and Sirius are sat on the floor of the study, and there is a record playing, and Mr. Potter has got a chair and is looking at the leaky window.

He was only looking at the leaky window (but as his leg is hoisted atop that chair Sirius is reminded).

Sirius’s hand clenches and there is this remarkable feeling that he is back in that house. This incredible sensation of his hands reaching of their own accord to his neck, and there is this fear of death that is hardly ever there, but it is constantly there. And he feels that he is choking, and he does not feel that he can breathe, and there is the smell of dark magic sulfur coating his throat and he screams, shouts, and he feels blinded because this time there is Regulus saying, over and over again, _blood traitor_ , over and over again, except now it’s James rolling him onto his side. These things are facts: Sirius can feel the rope around his neck, and he can feel hands manipulating him. He wants to die but he knows he needs to live -- he needs to live, instinct dictates, he is moving his arms in a violent way even though he is shaking and weak.

When the fog clears Mr. Potter is shouting and James is lying on the floor. And Sirius is awake now, more awake than he has been, ever, and he knows something else to be a fact: James’s glasses are broken and there is blood running from his nose.

He is shaking.

James says, quickly, _it’s okay, Padfoot, it’s okay._

Mr. Potter is looking at Sirius, and asking him so many questions. His legs feel abrupt when he stands, and his voice is too loud as he apologizes, again, and again.

The rest of the day is taken up by Sirius pretending to be okay and James assuring him. But it is not enough. He floos Marlene.

The apartment is smaller than any place he’s ever been in. Ms. McKinnon is watching a muggle program and smoking a cigarette. She glances at him and calls for Marlene.

She emerges from the bedroom, takes a look at him, and walks back in.

Sirius thinks they’ve magicked the fire escape to lead to the roof. 

She doesn’t say much of anything, but she pulls out a pack and hands him one.

“Shit summer.” The smoke leaves her mouth and almost immediately ascends into the sky. It’s just another bit of fucking dust. Fucking _dust_. And he hates the stars but for so much more than he did.

“Yeah.” Their building is not tall, but it’s the only one in the suburb. And he can see all around. Lights are on in houses and televisions are playing shows and records are being sung to.

She reaches a hand up -- their hair matches, now. Both cropped close to the skin. He wonders for a moment if she can tell what has happened. The thing shows on his face blunt and wide and raw, red, fresh from the butcher’s cleaver (it’s new but it’s rotting). Her hands are cold but they are small, and she asks about the ring of bruised skin. He doesn’t say much besides _my parents._

She nods. Her eyes are red. 

“You’re better off now. People will tell you that.” Her face is shattered but the edges are rounded, like blue-green pebbles in the sea. 

“But it’s true.” She sighs and looks at the sky. There aren’t any stars in the city. Sometimes he cannot tell if what she is saying is real or not. But there are tears in her eyes and her voice is almost breaking as she turns back to him.

“You can’t change what you are, you know.” She smiles, and it is only bitter for a moment. 

“You can’t even try.”

He is sad when he says _I know,_ but his chest is open, and she doesn’t even flinch when he pulls off his shirt and shows the words. 

He isn’t anywhere. He isn’t anything.

The Potters are eating when he comes in, and they stand to greet him and Euphemia pulls him into an embrace.

He looks her in the eyes when he says, “I understand if you want me to go.” 

They scoff, but they are serious when they say that he _will be staying, whether you like it or not._ James asks after dinner, after he has eaten a meal of things he likes, if he’d like to have Moony and Wormtail over.

Sirius says _sure_ , and that he’ll _try not to bludger them, sorry mate._ James opens up that huge, wide grin.

Peter and Remus arrive on a Tuesday, when it is unbearably hot. Sirius knows that James would have told Remus some of it. Not that Remus shows. But it’s just something that James would do.

They nick some firewhisky from James’s dad (surely he knows) and run the half kilometer down to the dock. Two drinks in, after Peter has already regaled them all with his summer conquests, Peter asks why Sirius isn’t at home. James freezes and Remus stills but Sirius just takes a sip and says that he left, for good.

They don’t ask any more questions, which is good. It all is good. It must be because would a not-okay person be with his friends on a dock in the summer heat laughing and having a good time and feeling good. Would a not-okay person be doing that.

Remus grasps his wrist when James and Peter have begun discussing Lily, and speaks quiet, under the noise of the record.

“They aren’t you, Padfoot,” And Sirius can see him, his eyes practically glowing with earnestness, even in the dark, so he doesn’t look at him when he mutters: 

“They’ve made that clear.” Remus tugs his wrist, and sits up.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

The other two have left. Sometimes Sirius thinks about taking a long swim with no air in the deepest, blackest waters. He thinks about it more than he thinks about anything else, so he looks at Moony. And his figure is silhouetted in the light of the moon, which is horrible, _horrible_. He is angular, and his hair is a mess, but he is tilting to Sirius like he is north, like he is the north star. Sirius’s throat is dry when he speaks.

“If things hadn’t gone like this, I would’ve said something already.”

He can hear the smile in Remus’s voice. He lays down and the light of the moon is less offensive.

“We’re still young.”

It feels like a lie, to both of them. But there’s no way to say that. So he won’t.

Remus grasps his hand, tight, in his own. Sirius has got an idiot’s smile on his face. And peace is tentative, and peace is relative, but Sirius thinks that this could be what he gets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahh! there's just one more chapter left! if you enjoyed (or if you didn't!) please leave a comment.


	8. year seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Certainly, they are sitting too close. There is the hint of a quirk to Sirius’s brow, and a nervous sort of scowl._
> 
> (the crescendo, the climax. The ending to this story but the start of something true)

The sky filters light through curtains. Everything is all soft, now, and there is this sense of something happening _outside_ the world. An explosion taking place just outside the range of things he could possibly care about. Dead people floating into their atmosphere, into this place where the sky filters warm light, and all the dead people’s bodies being healed. All of their broken parts convalescing in this golden honeyed light.

Sirius’s finger is resting just above the pulse in his wrist as Remus rests his head in Sirius’s lap. Remus fancies that if he checked, their veins would be pumping to the same rhythm, some incredible song about being young and filled with nothing but curtained light. 

Bowie, probably.

James is speaking, and Remus hums along as if his life isn’t perched in the space between his body and Sirius’s body.

James mentions, casually, ridiculously, that Lily Evans asked him to Hogsmeade.

They gape (because of _course_ they do) like they’re kids again.

James smiles, looking at the sky and pretending that their eyes aren’t bulging out on him.

“Mate, I-” Sirius begins. His hand is wrapped around Remus’s wrist.

“I told her no.”

This is like a heart attack.

“I told her that I’d much rather spend time at Hogwarts, so we’re having a picnic tonight.” His face is turning red and he is smiling.

“She said it’s the only good idea I’ve ever had.”

They erupt in shouting and patting on the back even though there isn’t much to commend James for, besides persistence and stubborn reformation.

It’s a sweet date, he hears from James. He says that they kissed at the end and that _her hair was incredible as the sun went down, you couldn’t even imagine, it was redder than any fire I’ve ever seen, and she talked about becoming a healer and what she’d do if she was a muggle and it was absolutely fascinating, Remus. Have you ever heard of a pediatric physician?_

Lily suppresses a smile and tells him that _it was nice_ and that she shoved mud down the back of James’s jumper. And she says his first name.

Remus is sitting in a tree overhanging the lake. He is sitting on the furthest edge he can. He does this, sometimes. He sits here, where the water is black and deep and so clearly magic. Sometimes he imagines that if he fell, he’d be submerged in black ooze that would slowly let him sink to the bottom. He’d never be found.

“You’re doing that thing, again,” Sirius calls from the base.

Remus smiles. When he slinks back up the branch, he does not feel watched. All he remembers feeling is calloused skin when he grasps Sirius’s hand and pulls him up. 

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

Certainly, they are sitting too close to be normal. 

“It’s a habit I’ve picked up from you.”

“You? For the life of me, I cannot envision this strange habit I’ve infected you with.”

Sirius taps Remus’s knee.

“It’s where you outline the shape of your scars above your clothes.” Sirius is looking at him and Remus’s thigh is pressed onto his. “And you look sad.”

“I never knew.” Remus exhales, and each moment feels like an hour. The smoke always smells like Sirius. “Those things will kill you.”

Sirius lights another and passes it to Remus. He thinks that Sirius only smokes because he needs something to distract from the emptiness of his hands. That’s why Remus smokes, at least.

Once during the summer, when Remus and Peter stayed with James and Sirius for as long as they physically and psychologically could, Peter had snuck off to Diagon Alley. For an hour, at most, and he came back with a large pouch with a beaming young wizard’s face on it. It said, _For the Older Warlock: Your One-Stop Shop for Everything Virile, Fresh, and Distinguished, Too!_

They’d laughed, of course, because it was ridiculous. But then he pulled out a hair-growing tonic. And it became less ridiculous and more sweet, if anything Peter does could be called sweet rather than a sort of masculinized, half-serious yet afraid to show it affection. They told Sirius he should take it, but he got a strange look in his eyes and began to run his hands over his shaved scalp. He didn’t really say much so they dropped it. 

That night, Remus knew that Sirius was gone before he even woke up -- he always did, with Sirius, whether it was a sort of canine bond or the hint of something more.

When he’d got to the bathroom, bleary-eyed and only slightly frantically reciting every healing spell he knew under his breath, he found Sirius sat on the edge of the bathtub, staring at the bottle. 

Remus hummed and sat next to him (certainly, too close to be normal). And there was this quick white-hot flash of envy. But it passed, and he said:

“You don’t have to bear this scar.”

And Sirius just stood up, and looked at Remus, and set his mouth in a determined line. His back was straight. Remus couldn’t remember the last time he looked so wholly _himself._

And then he downed the whole bottle ( _I didn’t mean the whole thing, Padfoot!_ ). They were still laughing long after Sirius’s hair grew to the ground, and then grew rather concerned when it didn’t stop.

His hair rests just below his shoulders now. Peter cut it. 

It’s black, normally, but with the sun streaming in, it seems like a brownish sort of color. Warm. 

Certainly, they are sitting too close. There is the hint of a quirk to Sirius’s brow, and a nervous sort of scowl.

“Moony, would you -- ah, bugger it.”

Remus raises an eyebrow.

“Would you move in with me, after we’ve graduated?”

Something strange has just occurred, a peculiar sort of heartbeat that drops into his stomach. Sirius has got this look to him, this look of victory and of a grin about to erupt, and he grasps Remus’s gaping face in his too-big puppy-dog hands.

Remus nods, and then he smiles, and then he leans in. Sirius’s lips touch his, and his mouth is warm and it is chaste but this _must_ be the crescendo. It must be something ridiculous and remarkable, or perhaps it is only the symphony tuning their instruments for something _new_ , or the blood that you suddenly feel jump into your throat when the first note is played.

Sirius leans back when they are done, his chest rising and falling in time with Remus’s own. The curve of the tree was perfectly designed for his form, it seems.

“I feel together around you, Moony.”

Remus smiles, his teeth pressing together in a hurting, happy way.

“If I knew I’d be getting such a sop, I wouldn’t have agreed.”

Sirius looks into the sky when his mouth begins moving into a grin, and the sky’s beauty is reflected in his face.

Remus likes the sound of his laugh.

Sirius smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woah. thank you all so much for coming along with me on this journey and giving immense support along the way! i've got some fics in the works, so I'll be back soon enough :-)


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